Le 1er
A detail of Le 1er’s wild comic-book-style mural. You don’t usually expect to be taken aback by a restaurant, but Le 1er managed just that. We were flying blind after a trip to a vernissage (no drink) and a hugger-mugger … Read More
Archive
Expression
“C’est la fin des haricots” means “It’s a catastrophe, a disaster.” When supplies started to run low in 19th-century boarding schools, the kids had to eat the only thing left: beans. When there were no more beans, starvation loomed, hence … Read More
Frederic Chopin: La Note Bleue
Delacroix’s 1838 portrait of Chopin. © Roger Viollet What better place for an exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin than the Musée de la Vie Romantique? Not only … Favorite
Irish Cultural Center
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PLAYS The Irish Cultural Centre in Paris is putting on an ambitious theater program in the coming months, with four plays in English being performed for free in the lovely setting of a former convent in the fifth arrondissement. … Read More
The Tempest
Stephen Dillane as Prospero on the left and Christian Camargo as Ariel in the center with the rest of the cast. Photo: Joan Marcus, 2010 Sam Mendes’s production of The Tempest is to Parisian theater what Avatar was to cinema … Read More
Clémentine
Old-timey comfort and good, fresh food. Pros: Fresh vegetables, well-chosen wines, pleasant atmosphere.Cons: None to speak of. Attentive readers will have noticed a second arrondissement bias in my recent reviews, and this one is no exception: I’ve been checking out … Read More
Adam’s Apple
ADAM’S APPLE Theater troupe Compagnie du Poney will stage the tragicomedy La Pomme d’Adam, written and directed by Victor Dekyvere, at the Théâtre La Reine Blanche (2 bis, Passage Ruelle, 75018 Paris; tel.: 01 40 05 06 96) on April … Read More
Crime et Châtiment
“The Death of Marat” (c. 1793), by the studio of Jacques-Louis David. © Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer One gets the feeling that after the curators of the exhibition “Crime and Punishment” came up with their theme, they … Read More
La Bourse ou la Vie
The quirky decor includes a caricature of the owner drawn on the wall and pigs on the ceiling. The pepper sauce on the steak at La Bourse ou la Vie gave me a five-minute-long attack of the hiccups, my central … Read More
La Closerie des Lilas
Every struggling American writer on the way to a date with destiny has passed through the Closerie. Places associated with literary figures… hmm. The Deux Magots will forever bring to mind Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, but one can’t … Read More